''Mandla v Dowell-Lee'' UKHL_7
is_a_United_Kingdom_law.html" ;"title="982
UKHL 7
is a United Kingdom law">982
UKHL 7
is a United Kingdom law case on racial discrimination. It held that Sikhs are to be considered an ethnic group for the purposes of the Race Relations Act 1976.

Background

A Sikh boy was refused entry to Park Grove School,

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

by the headmaster because his father refused to make him stop wearing a

dastar A dastār ( pa, ਦਸਤਾਰ/دستار, from fa, دستار; ''dast'' or "hand" with the agentive suffix -ār; also known as a ਪੱਗ ''paga'' or ਪੱਗੜੀ ''pagaṛī'' in Punjabi) is an item of headwear associated with Sikhism, ...

and cut his hair. The boy went to another school, but the father lodged a complaint with the

Commission for Racial Equality The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to address racial discrimination and promote racial equality. The commission was established in 1976, and disbanded in 2007 when its ...

(CRE), which brought the case. Derry Irvine, a future

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...

, appeared for the CRE.

Judgment

Court of Appeal

The CRE lost in the Court of Appeal. Lord Denning, M. R. held the following: He held that Sikhs were not a

racial A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

or ethnic group.

House of Lords

The CRE won the Appeal to the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

, where

Lord Fraser of Tullybelton Walter Ian Reid Fraser, Baron Fraser of Tullybelton, (3 February 1911 – 17 February 1989) was a British judge. Life and career Ian Fraser was born in Glasgow on 3 February 1911, the only child of Alexander Reid Fraser, a Glasgow fur mer ...

held the following. He went on to approve the test set out by Richardson, J. in the County Court. They held that Sikhs were a

or ethnic group.

Significance

The outcome of this case has been that it has led to a legal definition of the term

ethno-religious An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of people who are unified by a common religious and ethnic background. Furthermore, the term ethno-religious group, along with ethno-regional and ethno-linguistic groups, is a s ...

Notes